Biblical Hebrew Lesson 2 - The Vowels

Join Dr. Josh as he embarks on his 'Learn to Read Biblical Hebrew' series! Come and learn about the language used to write the Bible :) In this lesson, Josh discusses how Biblical Hebrew uses and writes vowels.

Sources:
Mittermayer, C. 2006. Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarischen Texte.

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Music: Brak Bnei Original Composition

[sherryhatcher]

You do a great job of teaching about the vowels. I just found your video while I was perusing through on YouTube. Where can I find video one?😅😮

[ADEpoch]

I've found while learning modern Hebrew that tryign to learn the vowels kind of gets in the way. Sure they may help you first get an idea of how a word sounds if you haven't heard someone say it verbally, but after you know it then, just like you do in English, you use pattern recognition to know the word when reading fast (like in 'pharmacy' and 'alien' which break a lot of the initial rules you teach a kid learning to read). The vowels then just start to look like extra gumph on the page. Unfortunately you can't easily turn the nikud off when you don't want to see them.

[Demolish_DoctrineRichardMadsen]

Dr. Josh,
Should I be mistaken I beg your forgiveness. As I listened to the long vowel set it seemed to me that at time 3.33 was pronounced a short "e" sound after it was explained to be a long "e" sound. Please correct me as needed.

[That_one_introvert.]

In Classical Hebrew, wouldn't רֵאשִׁית be pronounced with a "th" sound at the end because of the tav? I ask because you didn't pronounce the "th"; instead, you pronounced it like the modern tav sound.

[NirnBootMod]

This is hard. I am trying to learn Ancient Hebrew because it is not from Earth, it was brought here. Although it originates from the Mind of God... it is as old as time.

[jeranuspeedruns]

Kind of disappointed how ur not using the proper pronunciation, so the whole thing sounds very american english.
First of all the vowels, they are not pronounced the way they are in English, they are not diphthongs (a vowel that slides from one to another e.g. I = ai, plus E is not pronounced ei but instead ēh, it's a long eh sound)
Another thing is consonants, by obvious means the R is not rotic but instead a tap like in spanish.
It's just criticism, no need to take it personally :p